Feature • To Kill a Mockingbird ---------------- Staging a ... · To Kill a Mockingbird, it’s a...
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March 28, 2013 ---------------------------------------------------------------- www.whatzup.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------5 Call (260) 432–8176 or visit Sweetwater.com. Store Hours Mon.–Thurs. 9–9 Friday 9–8 Saturday 9–7 *On Purchases of select manufacturers’ products made with your Sweetwater Musician’s All Access Platinum Card between now and the expiration date. Interest will be charged to your account from the purchase date if the promotional purchase is not paid in full within 24 months. Minimum Monthly Payments. Some manufacturer-specific restrictions apply — ask your sales engineer for details. No Interest if Paid in Full within 24 Months * ON OVER 60 BRANDS! By Jen Poiry-Prough This spring, Fort Wayne’s biggest entertainment blockbuster isn’t an action movie with explosions and car chases. Ac- cording to the director and cast of To Kill a Mockingbird, it’s a poignant and heart wrenching history lesson played out live onstage at the USF Performing Arts Cen- ter. The stage production is based on the 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Harper Lee. The 1962 film starred Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, a lawyer and single dad faced with the impossible task of de- fending the life of Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white woman – a crime it becomes clear he did not commit. “The courtroom scene is as exciting as any current action or adventure film,” says Greg Stieber, who plays virulently racist prosecutor Mr. Gilmer. “It’s gripping; it’s fast-paced. There’s a reason the Ameri- can Film Institute named Atticus Finch the greatest film hero of all time. He’s not shooting a gun or jumping from buildings. But the courtroom scene is astounding.” “Atticus is a great champion of right,” says director Brad Beauchamp. “He stands up against all odds, knowing full well there’s not a snowball’s chance of Tom Robinson getting a fair trial. Ever.” Ennis Brown, who plays the accused man, agrees. “Tom Robinson is a pioneer. He’s the Rosa Parks of his time. Tom knows there’s no way possible he’ll be found not guilty, but he stays true on the witness stand. He has to endure and stand tall and proud.” The show is as relevant to- day as it was 50 years ago when the novel was written – or 80 years ago when the story takes place. “Society struggles with our own prejudices,” says Beauchamp. “There are pockets of the country that still have segre- gation.” Brown agrees. “It’s good to show everyone [this is] still subtly going on now. The play shows us where we came from and where we need to go.” Playgoers should be warned the script contains rough language. Beauchamp did not allow his actors to soften the blow. As the prosecutor working to convince a jury that the accused is a second class citizen at best, Stieber says that calling his friend “boy” 14 times (he counted them) “was rough in the beginning. It bothered me more than I thought it would, but Ennis said, ‘No, the nastier you are to me, the easier it is to react to.’” To help Brown get into Tom’s mind-set, Beau- champ reminded him, “We need to see in your eyes [the understanding that] at any time this trial could close and you could be out the door and hanging from a tree.” Given the emotionally draining content, Beau- champ wanted to cultivate a secure environment, so he insisted on a closed rehearsal. No one outside the cast was allowed. “They needed to feel comfortable with one another,” he explains. “These are nasty, vi- cious words. [The actors] need to be comfortable with each other as human beings. As Ennis said, ‘We’re all fam- ily here.’” Brown agrees that the closed set “eased everybody’s tension. [The other actors] thought hearing those words would be uncomfortable for me. But mostly it was uncom- fortable for them.” Nevertheless, he admits that “to have someone in your face, degrading you by calling you ‘boy’ or that little ‘n’ word takes a toll on you. As an actor, you have to separate it from yourself and ask yourself, ‘What am I doing this for?’ It’s for the greater good. This story needs to be told and retold.” Brown says he watched the Quentin Tarantino film Django Unchained before starting work on this play. “I thought, ‘How can you let people say that word to your face over and over?’” he laughs. “And I realize now that as an actor, you see yourself as a teacher.” He calls the show “a history lesson brought to life. A lot of people don’t like to read but theatre helps them visualize it and absorb it more. It’s a learning tool for everyone. This history lesson is thrust on you.” As a counter-balance to such heavy lessons, the script has some “lighthearted [moments],” says Beauchamp. The courtroom drama is shown through the eyes of Atticus’ daughter Scout (played by Zoe Moore), his son Jem (Bo Geyer), and their friend Dill (Ray Wolf), and the beginning of the play features some humor. “Brad is really in tune with the perspectives of the children,” says Stieber, who directed a Civic The- atre production of the same script 10 years ago. “He’s really capturing that ‘through of the eyes of a child’ ------------------ Feature • To Kill a Mockingbird ---------------- Staging a Civics Lesson Continued on page 22 TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD Friday-Saturday, April 5-6 & 12-13 • 8 p.m. Sunday, April 7 & 14 • 2 p.m. USF Performing Arts Center 421 W. Berry St., Fort Wayne Tix: $12-$15 thru box office, 797-1699
Transcript of Feature • To Kill a Mockingbird ---------------- Staging a ... · To Kill a Mockingbird, it’s a...
March 28, 2013 ---------------------------------------------------------------- www.whatzup.com --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5
Call (260) 432–8176 or visit Sweetwater.com.
Store HoursMon.–Thurs. 9–9 Friday 9–8 Saturday 9–7
*On Purchases of select manufacturers’ products made with your Sweetwater Musician’s All Access Platinum Card between now and the expiration date. Interest will be charged to your account from the purchase date if the promotional purchase is not paid in full within 24 months. Minimum Monthly Payments. Some manufacturer-specific restrictions apply — ask your sales engineer for details.
No Interest if Paid in Full within 24 Months*
ON OVER 60 BRANDS!
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Call (260) 432–8176 or visit Sweetwater.com.
Store HoursMon.–Thurs. 9–9 Friday 9–8 Saturday 9–7
MADNESS!MADNESS!MADNESS!
*On Purchases of select manufacturers’ products made with your Sweetwater Musician’s All Access Platinum Card between now and the expiration date. Interest will be charged to your account from the purchase date if the promotional purchase is not paid in full within 24 months. Minimum Monthly Payments. Some manufacturer-specific restrictions apply — ask your sales engineer for details.
No Interest if Paid in No Interest if Paid in Full within 24 Months Full within 24 Months*
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By Jen Poiry-Prough
This spring, Fort Wayne’s biggest entertainment blockbuster isn’t an action movie with explosions and car chases. Ac-cording to the director and cast of To Kill a Mockingbird, it’s a poignant and heart wrenching history lesson played out live onstage at the USF Performing Arts Cen-ter. The stage production is based on the 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Harper Lee. The 1962 film starred Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, a lawyer and single dad faced with the impossible task of de-fending the life of Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white woman – a crime it becomes clear he did not commit. “The courtroom scene is as exciting as any current action or adventure film,” says Greg Stieber, who plays virulently racist prosecutor Mr. Gilmer. “It’s gripping; it’s fast-paced. There’s a reason the Ameri-can Film Institute named Atticus Finch the greatest film hero of all time. He’s not shooting a gun or jumping from buildings. But the courtroom scene is astounding.” “Atticus is a great champion of right,” says director Brad Beauchamp. “He stands up against all odds, knowing full well there’s not a snowball’s chance of Tom Robinson getting a fair trial. Ever.” Ennis Brown, who plays the accused man, agrees. “Tom Robinson is a pioneer. He’s the Rosa Parks of his time. Tom knows there’s no way possible he’ll be found not guilty, but he stays true on the witness stand. He has to endure and stand tall and proud.” The show is as relevant to-day as it was 50 years ago when the novel was written – or 80 years ago when the story takes place. “Society struggles with our own prejudices,” says Beauchamp. “There are pockets of the country that still have segre-gation.” Brown agrees. “It’s good to show everyone [this is] still subtly going on now. The play shows us where we came from and where we need to go.” Playgoers should be warned the script contains rough language. Beauchamp did not allow his actors to soften the blow. As the prosecutor working to convince a jury that the accused is a second class citizen at best, Stieber says that calling his friend “boy” 14 times (he counted them) “was rough in the beginning. It bothered me more than I thought it would, but Ennis said, ‘No, the nastier you are to me, the easier it is to react to.’” To help Brown get into Tom’s mind-set, Beau-champ reminded him, “We need to see in your eyes [the understanding that] at any time this trial could close and you could be out the door and hanging from a tree.” Given the emotionally draining content, Beau-champ wanted to cultivate a secure environment, so he insisted on a closed rehearsal. No one outside the cast was allowed. “They needed to feel comfortable with one another,” he explains. “These are nasty, vi-cious words. [The actors] need to be comfortable with
each other as human beings. As Ennis said, ‘We’re all fam-ily here.’” Brown agrees that the closed set “eased everybody’s tension. [The other actors] thought hearing those words would be uncomfortable for me. But mostly it was uncom-fortable for them.”
Nevertheless, he admits that “to have someone in your face, degrading you by calling you ‘boy’ or that little ‘n’ word takes a toll on you. As an actor, you have to separate it from yourself and ask yourself, ‘What am I doing this for?’ It’s for the greater good. This story needs to be told and retold.” Brown says he watched the Quentin Tarantino film Django Unchained before starting work on this play. “I thought, ‘How can you let people say that word to your face over and over?’” he laughs. “And I realize now that as an actor, you see yourself as a teacher.” He calls the show “a history lesson brought to life. A lot of people don’t like to read but theatre helps them visualize it and absorb it more. It’s a learning tool for everyone. This history lesson is thrust on you.” As a counter-balance to such heavy lessons, the script has some “lighthearted [moments],” says Beauchamp. The courtroom drama is shown through the eyes of Atticus’ daughter Scout (played by Zoe Moore), his son Jem (Bo Geyer), and their friend Dill (Ray Wolf), and the beginning of the play features some humor. “Brad is really in tune with the perspectives of the children,” says Stieber, who directed a Civic The-atre production of the same script 10 years ago. “He’s really capturing that ‘through of the eyes of a child’
------------------ Feature • To Kill a Mockingbird ----------------
Staging a Civics Lesson
Continued on page 22
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRDFriday-Saturday, April 5-6 &
12-13 • 8 p.m.Sunday, April 7 & 14 • 2 p.m.USF Performing Arts Center
421 W. Berry St., Fort WayneTix: $12-$15 thru box office,
797-1699
As a child, I was exposed to a variety of theatre experiences by my father. It began simply enough with his sizable collection of cast recordings (My Fair Lady was my favorite), but it continued with performances at universities in our area which in-cluded musicals and straight theatre. I have always appreciated this education and still love live theatre, which is one of the reasons I so admire Fort Wayne’s active theatre community. One day several years ago he called and said he had tickets to a performance and, since his date for the evening had can-celled at the last minute, he wanted to know if I would like to join him for the show. I said sure, and naturally I asked what the show was. Somewhat sheepishly, he said it was The Vagina Monologues. Okay, it may not be your typical father-daugh-ter outing, but if you’ve seen the show you know that it is something that transcends such gender awkwardness and delves right into territory which is both hilarious and poi-gnant, speaking to experi-ences which women – and the men who love them – will immediately recog-nize. Premiering in 1996 by Eve Ensler and origi-nally starring Ensler in all of the roles, The Vagi-na Monologues quickly became a touchstone for women’s groups and a way of raising both funds and awareness for groups seeking to end violence against women. Locally, that baton is being carried by Fort Wayne Women’s Bureau in an effort to con-tinue its work with victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. With two April 6 performances – a matinee at 2 p.m. and an evening performance and reception beginning at 7 p.m. – The Vagina Monologues will continue to pack a punch as it has done for nearly two decades. Invoking a full range of female experiences from the mundane to the profound, Ensler has tapped into the large universal
language of womanhood, and it is impossible to leave a performance untouched by what is said in the col-lection of monologues. Representing the young and old, it speaks to what the Fort Wayne Women’s Bureau has been seeking to
accomplish in its long history in our area. Although being performed in April, these per-formances of The Vagina Monologues are part of the V-Day celebration in our area, one which typi-cally takes place on February 14, better known to many as Valentine’s Day. This year the One Billion Rising campaign filled that void by encouraging women around the world to dance in expression of their freedom and their fight against violence. Not limited to one day, expanding the V-Day celebra-tion into spring allows encourages more involve-ment and awareness throughout the year. On that note, look for Walk a Mile in Her Shoes again this fall, another great fundraiser and awareness cam-paign sponsored by the Fort Wayne Women’s Bu-reau.
Fare WarningMichele DeVinney
Speaking Out on Behalf of Women
22 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- www.whatzup.com -------------------------------------------------------------- March 28, 2013
Tops at the Box: Something called The Croods took the No. 1 spot at the U.S. box of-fice this past weekend, selling a whopping $44.7 million over its first three days. Add to that another $62 million from foreign markets and Dream-works has a kinda-hit movie in this star-studded animated feature about prehistoric man. I’ve not seen the film, obviously, because I like good movies, but I have given the movie’s poster the ol’ stink eye. Take a look for yourself: on it you’ll see a girl with her hand stuffed up her nose, a grinning alli-gator dog thing, some sort of surfer caveman guy and maybe the silli-est looking large cat you’ll ever see on a movie poster. What does this poster tell us? It tells us that The Croods could be pretty great in a totally strange, silly, “I feel dumb today” sort of way. But mostly it tells us that maybe we should go to another movie. Like maybe Gimme the Loot or Spring Breakers. Or maybe go see a smaller flick you missed, like Quartet, Stoker or Side Effects. That’s a lot of maybe’s. Also at the Box: New end-of-the-world thriller/epic Olympus Has Fallen took the No. 2 spot at the box office last weekend, selling just over $30 million over its first three days of release in the U.S. Looks like a stupid fun time to me. Olympus, directed by Antoine Fuqua (Train-ing Day, Shooter), stars Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, Ashley Judd, Melissa Leo and a ton of other people you may or may not recognize. Looks okay, maybe. Maybe. Taking the No. 3 spot at the box was Sam Raimi’s Oz the Great and Powerful which sold a decent enough $22 million over its third weekend, upping the flick’s 17-day total to $178 million in the U.S. and $356 million worldwide. Not quite the hustler numbers Buena Vista wanted out of their big spring release, but still a solid rich-maker. Rounding out the Top 5 last weekend were The Call, which banked $8 million, and Admission, which sold $6.5 million. Also of note, Harmony Korine’s much-talked-about new movie, a sex and debauchery epic called Spring Breakers, sold $5 million over its first weekend of wide release. Not bad, but dang, I was hoping that
creep Harmony would hit it big. Gotta love the genuine weirdos, especially when they find a way to spit-shine their slanted version of the world and serve it up to the normals. New this Week: There’s a movie called G.I. Joe: Retaliation coming out this weekend. It’s prob-ably about some army guys who get revenge on some non-army guy types that the kids call “bad guys.” I also think the film is based on action figures from the 60s, 70s and 80s. The movie, about action
figures getting revenge on other action figures, stars The Rock, Chan-ning Tatum, Bruce Wil-lis and a bunch of other guys who probably got hair in their pits before everyone else in their class. Looks not good. Also out is a sci-fi thriller called The Host that stars some young people you probably don’t know from the air-
brush generation. The movie is written and
directed by Andrew Niccol, the sometimes great director who once upon a time gave us a killer sci-fi flick called Gattaca. “Is this movie based on Bong Joon-ho’s excellent 2006 film with the same title?” is what you should be asking your-self. The answer to that perfect question is “no,” this The Host is based on a book by Twilight writer Stephenie Meyer. Rounding out this weekend’s trilogy of dumbo, low-brow snoozer flicks is Tyler Perry’s new stinker, a so-called-drama titled Tyler Perry’s Tempta-tion: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor. Pretty bangin’ title, right? An artist, that Tyler Perry. A true artist. Home Video: New to home video last Tuesday, March 26: The Comedy, The Collection, Kill-ing Them Softly, Lincoln, To the Arctic, Parental Guidance, Easy Money, Bangkok Revenge and the Criterion Collection edition of Monsieur Verdoux. That, dear readers, is a very solid week for home releases. Out this coming Tuesday, April 2: The Sweeney, White Elephant, John Dies at the End, Hitler’s Children and a Blu-Ray edition of the underrated That Thing You Do!.
A Whole Lotta Maybe’sScreenTimeGREG W. LOCKE
[tone].” “The kids are great,” Beauchamp raves. “They’re hanging right in there with the adults. Ray came to the first rehearsal with his part memorized. It was like, ‘Pony up, everybody!’” He says it’s exciting to watch the children start to understand the emotions and conflicts in the play. Their participation in the show, he says, will give them a greater understanding of the novel when they’re a little older. Not only do the kids get an education in history and human rights, but the theatre experience teaches them other valuable lessons. Veteran actor Jeff Moore, who plays the villain-ous Bob Ewell, the man who falsely accuses Tom of assaulting his daughter, is reprising his role from the Civic production. He has enjoyed watching his daugh-ter Zoe go through the process in portraying Scout. “I get to see the light bulbs go on over her head as she makes new discoveries,” he says. “I also have to walk the tightrope between being a supportive parent and letting her do the work herself.” But he says his daughter is “very self-sufficient. I ask her if she wants to go over her lines with me, and she says, ‘Thanks, Dad, but I think I’ve got it.’”
If his own daughter doesn’t want to take a lesson from him yet, the USF students in the cast are happy to learn from him. Communications major Chrissy Fleenor, who plays Maella Ewell, the woman Tom is accused of raping, works very closely with Moore, who plays her father. “How can you beat that?” says Beauchamp. “She’s told me it’s so wonderful to work with him and learn to stay in the moment, in character with him. She’s not a theatre major, but it can’t help but have an effect on her career, whatever she pursues.” The little ones are also learning life lessons through their experiences in the theatre, says Moore. “I’ve felt a greater sense of setting the example for [Zoe’s] conduct, her work ethic, her courtesy toward others in the production,” he says. “There’s a respon-sibility to do justice to the role and the play, and she takes it seriously. But she also knows how to let it go and be a kid and start over again the next day. I admire that about Zozo, I wish I could be more like that.” Beauchamp also admires the lessons children teach. “Kids don’t see black and white,” he says. “They see people, ‘my friend,’ ‘my playmate.’ “We would be better off if we could look at the world through a child’s eyes.”
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD - From Page 5
THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES
Saturday, April 6 • 2 & 7 p.m.Arts United Center
303 E. Main St., Fort WayneTix: $44-$54 thru box office,
422-4226, tickets.artstix.org
